Outcry grows over plan to livestream US military execution

It would be the first US military firing squad execution since 1945.

Several lawmakers said they supported the execution but opposed broadcasting it."Livestreaming executions is what jihadists do.

America is better than that," Republican Representative Austin Scott said.

Senator Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, described the proposed broadcast as "a barbaric spectacle".

He warned it could benefit terrorist recruiters.US President Donald Trump said Hasan "deserves it", calling him a "maniac", but did not comment on the livestream plan.

US Vice President JD Vance said he would not watch the execution if it were livestreamed, citing his Christian faith.

Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has backed making the execution public.The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said livestreaming an execution would constitute a public execution and breach the absolute prohibition of torture.

Archbishop Paul Coakley, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, called the proposal a "barbaric promotion of a culture of death".Hasan, an army psychiatrist, killed 13 people and wounded 30 others in the shooting; 12 of those killed were soldiers.

He was shot and partially paralysed by a civilian police officer responding to the attack.

A military jury sentenced Hasan to death in 2013Hasan conducted his own defence at trial but called no witnesses and did not deny the charges.

The court heard that he opposed US military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and had communicated online with radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.The Amnesty International said public executions had continued in some countries, reporting at least 17 in 2025 in Afghanistan and Iran.

The group's Justin Mazzola said broadcasting Hasan's execution would "only compound the cruelty".